Because of the new release delays imposed on it by three major studios, Redbox has had to become creative to obtain desirable titles the first weeks they are out. Several weeks ago, financial services firm Merriman Curhan Ford found that Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, a popular animated film, was only stocked in around two-thirds of the more than 50 Redbox kiosks it checked. On November 14, the firm checked the same kiosks again and found the DVD stocked in 94% of the boxes.

“With that movie still in the top six rentals for the past week, we are encouraged by the incremental gains in stocking the title with the company’s workaround program,”

The workaround Wold refers to is the fact that Redbox is being forced to purchase new release titles at retail that have been denied to it by Fox, Warner and Universal.

Wold also reported news that might deflate some of the aforementioned studios’ argument against Redbox. According to Wold, Crank 2: High Voltage, a title from Lionsgate and the studio’s first major release since its distribution agreement with Redbox “did not display any evidence of cannibalization through any channel” in the quarter since its release.

Is Wold being premature in basing his assessment on one title’s improvement over several weeks, Insiders, or is this a growing trend? Have you noticed an improvement in the availability of Fox, Warner and Universal titles in a Redbox near you?

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Analyst Eric Wold seems to monitor Redbox more than other analysts for some reason, however according to this news release yesterday, either Eric or FOX is “not” telling the truth about the workaround.

Boring site since Michael ran off everyone who had an opinion that was anything but PRO-Redbox. How much traffic to your Inside Redbox website have you lost since Sony, Foxwins, & others no longer are here?

They left me no choice but to call them out for engaging in deceptive practices on the site. If I allowed that type of behavior to continue, the site would have degenerated into quite a mess.

I welcome anyone with differing opinions from redbox, Shane or myself to share their thoughts here, including those from VBG or any other companies who have a bone to pick with Redbox.

We share the news, no matter what it is, and everyone’s thoughts and opinions are welcome. Bring it on! :)

Regarding your question of traffic lost – there has been no decrease in traffic, and in fact we have seen an increase over the past month or so. I don’t think the amount of traffic was related to those particular users, but it did result in more comments and discussion, which is always welcome.

Wold also reported news that might deflate some of the aforementioned studios’ argument against Redbox. According to Wold, Crank 2: High Voltage, a title from Lionsgate and the studio’s first major release since its distribution agreement with Redbox “did not display any evidence of cannibalization through any channel” in the quarter since its release.

ummm i wouldnt be pointing out crank 2 as a major release : ) at least around here its been in every box since the day it came out… that was more of a love it (going to run out and buy it first day) or hate it movie

I agree it seems like this site ran off anyone who had any knowledge of what’s going on. It used to be fun reading when people on here were debating what’s going on. Now this just seems like a homer site where 3-5 people respond to each post. Boring!!!!

I find it interesting that they say there was no cannibalization on a tier 2 title.

I suspect they are including the additional copies of Crank 2 that would have been “sold” to Redbox. Since Lionsgate and Redbox have signed a deal that gives Lionsgate almost double their normal market share in a Redbox it would likely mean an additional 5 copies over 20000 boxes for an additional 100,000 units in “sales”.

However, Lionsgate will be getting a fractional return on those additional units as opposed to if they had sold through normal venues.

So they may say there was “no cannibalization” but the likely cost to Lionsgate because of the Redbox deal is probably around 3-4 hundred thousand dollars in revenue from the title.

At the site http://www.RedboxLateFees.com, people can figure out if they are eligible to join the suit. There also will be regularly posted updates about the case and other related news items relating to Redbox.

The lawsuit alleges that Redbox unfairly dings customers $1 for every day past the paid one-night rental that the DVD is not returned to machines. It notes that Redbox touts a ‘No Late Fees’ policy.

In particular, the suit cries foul that the $25 charged for titles kept more than 24 days is more than triple Redbox’s used-DVD sales price and amounts to unfair business practices.

At the time of the suit’s filing, Redbox said that it didn’t comment on pending litigation.

As I posted earlier, this is one of the most ridiculous lawsuits I have seen in awhile.

While it appears there may be some legal precedence for this case to win based on wording, anyone who supports this is either a fool, a liar or simply an opportunist.

If anyone thinks the lawsuits Redbox has against the studios are bad, this is 100x worse.

Basically, someone was too lazy to return their DVDs in a timely manner, and are now looking for some way to place the blame on anyone but themselves. This is a mentality that is becoming all too commonplace these days, and I can only hope that the plaintiff and these money-grubbing attorneys who took this case get this case tossed out and are forced to pay Redbox legal fees.

But this is so similar to the same thing that happened to Blockbuster in 2005. I thought Blockbuster’s program was reasonable, return in within 15 days and there was No Late Fees. But consumers got angry and all the wording had to be changed.

I see the same thing happening here. The wording from Redbox will have to change, and lawyers will have to be paid.

Sigh…Whatever happened to Caveat emptor. Whatever happened to common sense. Whatever happened to you get what you pay for.

I specifically said it looked like Redbox could lose because of the wording issue. That doesn’t mean I support the action or think it is right, though.

We need more people to stand up for what is right, not just what might pass as “legal” in our currently ridiculous legal system. People filing lawsuits just because they can is not something that is right, but as long as everyone is complacent or think they are entitled to everything, it will stay that way.

The popular Ice Age movie gets rented out as soon as they put them in the box, “financial services firm” proves it doesn’t know how rental kiosks work.

“financial services firm Merriman Curhan Ford found that Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, a popular animated film, was only stocked in around two-thirds of the more than 50 Redbox kiosks it checked. On November 14, the firm checked the same kiosks again and found the DVD stocked in 94% of the boxes.”

So basically they prove that people returned the movie afterwards.

WTF?

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